


Four in the Morning

by Origamidragons



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Domestic, F/M, Humanstuck, Introspection, SlickPaint Week, The Felt - Freeform, The Midnight Crew - Freeform, two days early, worried ms paint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7492110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origamidragons/pseuds/Origamidragons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is MS. PAINT and you are WORRIED SICK.</p>
<p>It is three sixteen in the morning. You know this because you have been alternately pacing the living room and watching the clock for the last three hours. Your husband promised to be home by midnight. Short night, he said, just gonna play a little poker with the boys, don't fret, dollface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four in the Morning

Your name is MS. PAINT and you are WORRIED SICK.

It is three sixteen in the morning. You know this because you have been alternately pacing the living room and watching the clock for the last three hours. Your husband promised to be home by midnight. Short night, he said, just gonna play a little poker with the boys, don't fret, dollface.

But you _are_ fretting because he was supposed to be home _three hours ago_. He _promised_. How can he tell you not to worry when you know full well the dangers of what he does and then disappears with no warning? Not even a phone call to tell you if he's still breathing or bleeding out in an alleyway?

It's moments like this, in the darkness of the early early morning, that sometimes doubt creeps into your mind and you wonder why you ever married him, why you're doing this, why you ever said yes. Why you ever made yourself a mobster's wife.

It's three twenty-one and you remember a late night not long after you got your teaching license and were hired at Skaia Elementary, walking home for once because your usual bus wasn't running it really wasn't all that far, taking a detour down a narrow sidestreet and very nearly tripping over what you at first genuinely thought was a dead body, there was so much blood. It was a wreck of a man with a bloody gash through one eye and his left arm a crimson ruin. You couldn't in good conscience leave him to bleed out and the hospital was closed, so you managed to lug his limp form home even though he was (still is) twice your size.

You laid him up on the couch and stitched up his wounds as best you could and he was feverish for a few days and you didn't dare move him. When he finally woke up for the first time, one remaining eye glazed over with pain and sickness, he begged you not to take him to the hospital. They'd find him there, he said. He needed to lay low for a while, an' of course he hated t'be intruding, but...

You let him stay.

It's three thirty-seven and you've been awake since six so you could get to the school on time and get all set up before the kindergartners were dropped off, and your eyes are starting to ache but you know deep inside yourself you won't be able to sleep until he's standing in front of you safe and sound.

Or until you're called down to the police station to identify his body.

You know in your heart, in your gut, that one of those two things will have to happen before you can sleep again.

It's three forty-two and you've called the boys. Clubs hasn't heard from him, although listening to his cheery babbling does bring a quick smile to your face before worry wipes it away again with all the force of a waterfall. Hearts's voice is a low rumble like an earthquake, and he calls you 'doll' just like your husband does and promises to call you the second he gets news. Droog's voice is soft and comforting and he ain't seen Spades since he stormed out of the game on a bad streak, sorry ma'am, he wishes he could help more. You thank him with a sigh and hang up, knowing he automatically doffed his hat to you on the other end of the line.

A normal wife might not engage so closely with her husband's gang, but the Midnight Crew isn't just a gang. They're Spades's family, and since you're his wife that makes them your family too. Simple as that. You care for them, all of them, and they care about you too. They're the first real family you've had since you lost your fiance and the baby soon after, and you love them for that.

It's three forty-nine and you've called Snow. She's your husband's ex and a member of the Felt. Every Sunday when she's not performing or getting shot, the two of you have coffee and bond over how frustrating Slick can be. She's your best friend, and once in a blue moon she and Slick play pool together so you figure it's worth a try.

Snow's voice is smoky and sultry and you can practically hear her sucking on her cigarette when she answers, but she says sorry, she hasn't seen him since she thoroughly kicked his ass at pool at the Felt's billiards club last Tuesday. It's a front for all kinds of criminal enterprises, but they do also serve decent alcohol and she sings there from time to time and she's brought you there for a girls' night more than once. She wishes you luck 'even though I don't know why you stick with that fucker' and blows you a kiss through the phone before the line goes dead.

It's three fifty-five and an evil little piece of your brain is whispering that you might never see your husband again. You fought earlier that day over some stupid thing and you feel sick when you think that what might have been the last time you saw your husband you were fighting. Did you tell him you loved him before he left? You do every day, but now you can't remember. Oh, God, what if you forgot?

You taste blood all of a sudden and you suddenly realize you've been chewing on your lip so hard it's bleeding, a nervous habit from when you were young that always seems to come back at times like this, when sickening uncertainty settles on your shoulders and squeezes your heart like a vice.

With every minute that ticks past far too slowly on the big grandfather clock that Slick hates with a passion, it seems more and more likely that you'll never see him again.

It's four in the morning and the doorbell rings and you startle so badly you almost fall over before you rush to the door and practically throw it open.

Your husband is standing there, the scar above his eyebrow reopened and bleeding, looking like he's about to collapse. Hey, babydoll, he says in a tired voice. I'm home.

You slap him, backhand, hard, across the face before you pull him in for a long, slow kiss.

You remember exactly why you married him, why you chose this as your life, why you made yourself a mobster's wife.

You love him, and he's safe, and that's all that matters.


End file.
